Royals join record dawn service crowd

THE 40 Australian soldiers who died in Afghanistan have been remembered before a record crowd, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, at an Anzac Day dawn service in the nation's capital.

Wearing coats against the morning chill, the Prince William and Kate stood with Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove for the ceremony marking the 99th anniversary of the landing of Australian and New Zealand soldiers at Gallipoli.

The couple will also attend the national service in Canberra later on Friday morning before departing Australia for the UK.

Before the service, Squadron Leader Sharon Brown recounted her experiences as a medic in Afghanistan, awaiting the sound of helicopters bringing back the wounded.

"I have seen the strongest and finest reduced to flesh and witnessed the death of innocence and once supposed sense of immortality," she said.

"I have stood in a trauma room surrounded by the victims of an IED blast and watched our finest doctors, nurses and medics ask themselves not which casualty first, but which wound on which casualty first."

Victoria Cross recipient Corporal Ben Roberts Smith said the 40 Australians who died in Afghanistan were, like their forefathers, men who cared more about freedom and the Australian way of life than their own suffering and loss.

The soldiers fought agents of radical ideologies seeking to inspire fear and uncertainty.

"We have, with our allies, applied our significant skills and efforts to draining the perpetrators' manpower, resources and funding, forcing them to focus on their own survival rather than exporting their beliefs," Corporal Roberts-Smith said.

The veteran also reminded Australians not to forget the wounded, who outnumbered the dead.

"The war in Afghanistan may be coming to an end but for those who are wounded there, it will never end," he said.

Australian War Memorial director Dr Brendan Nelson said this year's dawn service in Canberra was attended by 37,000 people.

"Anzac Day is Australia's most significant national occasion," he told reporters.